Desperate Catholic Church Seriously Toying With Priestly Fucking

In the remote Brazilian town of Tabatinga… the Vatican is contending with a shortage of clergy to serve isolated communities in the region, as well as a growing challenge from evangelical Protestantism, which allows married ministers. Pope Francis has said the “door is always open” to married priests, though recent predecessors have rejected the idea…

Proponents of allowing married men to serve as priests under certain circumstances support ordaining so-called viri probati—Latin for “proven men”—who are community leaders.

Ordaining viri probati could help resolve a “sacramental emergency” the church is experiencing due to a lack of priests in remote areas such as the Amazon, Cardinal Beniamino Stella, the Vatican’s top official for clergy, said in a January interview with an Italian journalist…

But more-conservative voices caution that opening the priesthood to married men would undermine the traditional identity of Catholic priests as representatives of the celibate Christ.

The Rev. Gary Selin, author of a book on the theology of clerical celibacy, argues that ordaining married men would be a “quick fix” that would ignore the underlying causes of the priest shortage, which include inadequate recruitment efforts and “rampant materialism in our society.” [more]

Riiiiight Gary – because there’s nothing “underlying” whatsoever about an employment prerequisite requiring the denial of millions of years of human evolutionary biology. (OK, 5,000 years according to your l’il Bible.)

We couldn’t help but wonder about this Rev. Gary Selin, author of “Priestly Celibacy“, and how perfectly he must exemplify male clergy who are totes comfy in their non-sexuality. Here he is:

When we are troubled, frustrated, or struggling with something emotionally, our eyelids… may flutter rapidly as an expression of our sentiment. Research also shows that when we are nervous or troubled our blink rate increases, a phenomenon often seen with liars but also frequently seen with people under stress. [more]